Bill Ackman, billionaire CEO of hedge fund Pershing Square, announced that he is no longer a member of the Democratic Party due to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies and the state of Harvard University. He has also reportedly begun donating to Republican presidential candidates and plans to weigh in on the 2024 election down the line.
Ackman’s change of mind is a significant example of a trend among previously left-of-center Jewish Americans whose sympathies with the political left have cooled due to the intense anti-Zionism that has arisen following the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas War on October 7th. Ackman was a major donor to Harvard, having given at least $26 million to the university in the past, so his support matters greatly to the Harvard development office and board.
He made these comments in an X exchange with conservative activist and author Christopher Rufo, who is a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and well-known in social media circles for being an ardent opponent of critical race theory and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies. He is also notably the journalist who broke the story of Harvard President Claudine Gay’s plagiarism. This led to her resignation last week. Many had called for her resignation over her unwavering defense in Congress of anti-Jewish speech on campus, but the Harvard Corporation decided to dismiss the calls in part due to pressure from former President Barack Obama.
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Ackman began the conversation by replying to a post of Rufo’s about his book, America’s Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything. “It is an excellent and carefully researched book. I found it incredibly elucidating,” Ackman said. “A definite must read.”
In response, Rufo said he is happy that his work is inspiring the effort to reform universities, even if (or especially if) he is inspiring moderate Democrats like Ackman.
“I am no longer a Democrat,” Ackman responded. “I am a centrist. I only care about the truth. I will vote for and support whoever is best for our country regardless of their party affiliation.” He then announced that he began making donations to GOP presidential candidates Chris Christie, Nikki Haley, and Vivek Ramaswamy. He said he also sent money to Democratic candidate Dean Phillips.
It did. I am no longer a Democrat. I am a centrist. I care only about the truth. I will vote for and support whoever is best for our country regardless of their party affiliation.
I switched from independent to Democrat so I could vote in a democratic primary in NY and may…
— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) January 7, 2024
“I will have more to say on the presidential election in the future,” Ackman added.
Rufo is very aware of his role in toppling the Harvard President. “It shows a successful strategy for the political right,” he told Politico. “How we have to work the media, how we have to exert pressure and how we have to sequence our campaigns in order to be successful.”
Ackman has been agitating against Harvard, his alma mater, since early November, long before Gay’s disastrous Congressional testimony on December 5th. Just days after the Hamas attack, Ackman demanded that Harvard release the names of students who signed a letter blaming the war on Israel. He then outlined a list of hate speech policy recommendations in a long letter to Gay, which he released publicly.
A number of liberal Zionists have said on X that they intend to switch to the Republican Party, or at least suspend their support for the Democratic Party, due to the mainstream cultural left’s embrace of de-colonialism and the “Free Palestine” movement. Perhaps the most notorious person so far to back off from support of liberal politics is Trump-hating provocateur Michael Rapaport, who said voting for Trump is “on the table” for him if anti-Zionism continues on the left.
Ackman, meanwhile, is not going to back down from his crusade against Harvard simply because Gay has resigned (and kept her professorship presumably with her previous $900,000 salary). On Monday morning, Ackman highlighted a post on X about the frequency for the terms “decolonize” and “social justice” to appear in the Harvard course catalog, and said he aims to “fight” to “save” the university from an “ideological takeover.”
The ideological takeover of @Harvard is nearly complete.
We are all stepping in just in time to save it, but it is going to be a fight. https://t.co/HlLvVwjZQs
— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) January 8, 2024
Shane Devine is a writer covering politics, economics, and culture for Valuetainment. Follow Shane on X (Twitter).
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